The Future of Arama They Didn't

Hi!

In the past year we’re sure you've noticed a lack in Arama's quality and overall activity. We'd be lying if we didn't say we lost interest. We started Arama They Didn't! nearly five years ago, and to this day it still surprises us what it turned into.

Through years of copyright issues on streaming and download sites, it became increasingly difficult to find Japanese media online which is the only way most of us is able to access it. The J-pop community as a whole was segmented and shrunk even more with the rise of K-Pop’s constant releases and breaking news. At Arama, we tried to create a place that encompassed it all and bring back that sense of unity we once had. We've shared nearly 20,000 articles, received almost a million comments and built a community that brought 19,000 people together with the single interest of Japanese Pop Culture.

LiveJournal has given us the opportunity to achieve what we originally set out to do. In 2012 we joined LJ Media thinking we would be further legitimized as a news outlet and hub for fandom, but after that seemingly went nowhere and swept under the rug. As we grew, our needs also grew but we weren’t sure how to execute them. Finally we decided it was time for us to go to take the next step and plan a revival for Arama.

ARAMA! JAPAN

We've announced this on social media but we weren't sure how to handle things here. We've thought long and hard about this and thought it would be for the best for us to move off LiveJournal and finally be in total control of everything. Even though LiveJournal itself has started a comeback of sorts, unfortunately there are still too many issues for us to consider keeping it as our primary base of operations. Arama would just continue to stagnate and not grow as a community.

There isn't really an active place solely for Japanese pop culture fans to call their home, most of them are defunct, and yes that includes TokyoHive Our primary goal is to fill that void. We have a diverse team of writers who are very excited to start sharing news as well as fun and provocative editorials and opinion pieces. Unfortunately user-generated content would not work on our new platform. However, we will have a form where anyone can submit tips for news stories they would like to see published. New additions to the staff are always welcome! Details on that will be revealed in the near future.